Some of the most recent articles from open access anthropology journals (beta)
Proponemos una mirada a la figura del diablo del amor desplegada entre los siglos XVI y XVIII en Perú y Chile como un constructo cultural persecutorio de los afectos y la carnalidad femenina. Para ello, abordamos los registros condenatorios, como la de…
Antrocom
Antrocom
Short versions of the following articles were presented at the panel ‘Aesthetic Encounters: The Politics of Moving and (Un)settling Visual Arts, Design and Literature,’ which Paula Uimonen (Stockholm University) and I organized at the fifteenth …
This article examines both the development and implications of a sales strategy deployed by Christie’s and Sotheby’s from the mid-2000s to increase their market share and the prices of African and Oceanic art. The strategy was designed to entice…
Critical considerations of the impact of biennials on artistic practices worldwide emphasize that they create new hegemonies: biennials produce another canon of contemporary art at a global scale. The main characteristic is art’s insertion into …
This article puts forward a methodological pathway for work between anthropology and art that is premised on the relation between social and aesthetic form. It draws on the authors’ work with cartonera publishers in Latin America, small communit…
In the context of contemporary digital art and documentary making, practitioners are discovering the possibilities given by emerging image-based immersive practices, techniques and tools (360-degree video and photography; virtual, augmented, and…
Reflecting on two sets of analytical trajectories of the articles in this special issue — ‘institutions, histories, and spheres of valuation’ (Thomas Fillitz and Tamara Schild) and ‘immersion, correspondence, and form’ (Alex Flynn/Lucy Bell and …
I arrived in the island of Chiloé with the idea of making a fictional film about the 1880 Chilean State trial against a powerful organisation of sorcerers. Based on the experiences and encounters that emerged from my attempt to develop the film …
The idea of Latin America as an unified geopolitical entity has been called into question (Mignolo 2005), exposing claims for a specific aesthetics and epistemological modality as romantic fetishism in face of the diverse histories of economic, …
It may be tautological to claim that ethnographic films are a form of storytelling; one that combines concomitance and linearity between images and words to show and tell particular stories. However, drawing on Guto and Graça, a 9-minute film on…
In recent years, Peruvian social anthropology has seen a rising production of audio-visual and artistic works within the discipline, ranging from written analyses that incorporate arts and crafts (Bernedo 2011; González 2011; Ulfe 2014; Del Pino…
How ritual human sacrifice helped create unequal societies Ritual human sacrifice played a central role in helping those at the top of the social hierarchy maintain power over those at the bottom. This is the central finding of a study published today in Nature. Researchers from the University of Auckland’s School of Psychology, […]
Researchers find differences between ethnic groups living as farmers and those engaged in traditional hunter-gatherer activities Scientists have long thought that the rate with which mutations occur in the genome does not depend on cultural factors. The results of a current study suggest this may not be the case. A team of researchers […]
High-resolution, aerial imagery bears significance for researchers on the ground investigating how remote, ancient Maya civilizations used and conserved water. Collection, storage and management of water were top priorities for the ancient Maya, whose sites in Mexico, Belize and Guatemala were forced to endure seven months out of the year with very […]
Hundreds of iconic moai statues stand testament to the vibrant civilization that once inhabited Easter Island, but there are far fewer clues about why this civilization mysteriously vanished. Did they shortsightedly exhaust the island’s resources? Were they decimated by European illnesses and slave trade? Or did stow-away rats devastate the native ecosystem? Such theories have […]
PULLMAN, Wash. – The heavily studied yet largely unexplained disappearance of ancestral Pueblo people from southwest Colorado is “the most vexing and persistent question in Southwestern archaeology,” according to the New York Times. But it’s not all that unique, say Washington State University scientists. Writing in the journal Science Advances, they say […]
The first largescale study of ancient DNA from early American people has confirmed the devastating impact of European colonisation on the Indigenous American populations of the time. Led by the University of Adelaide’s Australian Centre for Ancient DNA (ACAD), the researchers have reconstructed a genetic history of Indigenous American populations by looking […]
An ancient species of pint-sized humans discovered in the tropics of Indonesia may have met their demise earlier than once believed, according to an international team of scientists who re-investigated the original finding. Published in the journal Nature this week, the group challenges reports that these inhabitants of remote Flores island co-existed with […]
Rare religious artifact found at ancient temple site in Italy is from lost culture fundamental to western traditions Archaeologists in Italy have discovered what may be a rare sacred text in the Etruscan language that is likely to yield rich details about Etruscan worship of a god or goddess. The lengthy […]